It seems like, I don't know, this is six or seven years or so that we've been here for Thanksgiving week, either before or after, so we look forward to every time we get to be here and interact with you folks, and we greatly appreciate your support of our ministry. God's doing some great things through the ministry of EBI. Of course, you know EBI stands for Editorial Bautista Independiente, which is a Spanish publishing ministry. We help facilitate theological training. We help with online studies for pastors that want to improve and Christian workers that want to improve their abilities and their training, so that's a part of what we do.

Then we also, of course, publish books. We have about 300 books that we have published over the years. We try to do 15 to 20 new books every year. This year we will do 18. We have a little small staff.

Half of us are in Sebring, Florida, then the rest of our staff is scattered across the globe. We have one staff member in Argentina. We have a couple in Mexico. We have one in Iowa, of all places. The Lord is doing great things, and we are seeing a big impact.

We are constantly hearing from people that are getting their hands and reading our materials, so we just want to thank you all for your part in allowing us to do that. This morning in Sunday school, for those of you who weren't here, we kind of talked and I said that what I wanted to do today was almost like let's call it a mini Thanksgiving conference, because everything we talk about today is going to be about gratitude and about thanksgiving, about all the blessings that we have as Christians, as Americans, and how we should reflect on that. This morning we kind of started talking about the idea of community and how that we have opportunities all the time around us, but especially this week, we are going to be interacting with people. We may have people into our homes or we may be with people. It's a real good opportunity for us to show the love of Christ to people everywhere.

I want to encourage you to do that. Today, we're going to continue on now with that same idea of thanksgiving. Take your Bibles, if you would, and turn to Luke chapter 17. Luke chapter 17, and we're gonna start reading in a few minutes in verse 11. Luke chapter 17 and verse 11.

What is coming up this Friday? Black Friday. Right? Okay. So how many of you I won't make you raise your hand.

Maybe I shouldn't. I was going to say, how many of you are going to be in line at the crack of dawn to go shopping? I tell you what I love about Black Friday. It's this special thing called amazon.com. Why in the world would I wanna go in a store anymore?

But, I once heard it said that only in America do we have a day where we pause to give thanks for all of the blessings that we have, for the bounty of material things that we have, for the excess of food and material things that we have. Only in America do we have a day of thanksgiving, and then the next day early, we get up to wait in line and to fight to get more stuff. It's true though, isn't it? It's kind of sad. It's sad that the day after thanksgiving, this day when we should be pausing to reflect about the many blessings, both spiritual and physical and the freedoms that we have, we should be reflecting on that, and yet we focus on getting more, to get more and more and more.

I always thought it was sad that when we were living in Peru that Peruvians do not celebrate Thanksgiving Day. They do not have such a day. They would call it Dia de Accion de Gracias, the day of giving thanks to God, but they did not celebrate that as a nation. It is just something they do have on their calendars there. Yet, even in Peru, a developing country that does not have the same level of material blessings and freedoms that we have here, they still have so much to be thankful for, but yet they did not pause to reflect on that.

And so it should cultivate this one special day a year. It should not be the only day, but it should be cultivating in our hearts this idea of gratitude. We just, over time, start to take things for granted. How often is Thanksgiving just shallow? I saw a thing this week, a meme or something on social media, and it somebody was starting a campaign.

They said, None of us like that dry turkey. Why don't we have beef brisket? I was like, that's not a bad idea. I could handle some beef brisket with some stuffing or something. Anyway, the idea is it is easy to get distracted thinking about all the food.

I can go through and I can probably get you all ready to go out the door. You think about, I don't know about your house, but we eat pineapple casserole and we have cornbread casserole or corn casserole. We have this really good stuffing. And I could go on and on about all these. This broccoli salad that's it's got raisins in it.

It sounds awful, but man, it is good. I could So with that, we'll close in prayer. Right? It's easy to get distracted and only think about the food. It's easy to think about all the family getting together and don't they have football games or something?

I don't know. I'm not a sports person. They watch some kind of games on TV or you play games together and everybody gets distracted. And if we're not careful, we forget to be grateful. And so do we ever stop to simply appreciate the blessings, to enjoy all of the possessions and all the comforts that we have?

And, really, we should be learning to appreciate with gratitude the spiritual heritage and blessings that we have, that we have a bible that we can read, that we have a god, the creator God that wants to have fellowship with us. And so when we have gratitude, it should lead us into a deeper worship. It should lead us into a deeper relationship with the giver of all blessings, and that's God. Now, I've lived in Florida now for a little over eight years, about eight and a half years, and there's things that you folks that are from Florida, native Floridian, y'all take for granted. So you can tell that I'm not from around here because I have a little thing on my phone.

I get notifications every time there is a rocket launch. You know I'm a newbie in Florida because what do we do? Every time there's a rocket launch, we go out in our front yard, we know exactly where to look in the sky, and we watch the rocket go up. Now, people that live here, they're like, why would you go out in the yard? We go out in the yard, nobody else is out in their yard.

Cars drive by, and they're looking like, what are those people looking at? Alright. So I still take for granted the rocket launches. I still take for granted the orange groves. They are just normal to other people, but if you have not lived in Florida, I love the smell of the orange groves and I like to look out.

They are starting to disappear. There is not as many of them, but I do not take them for granted. I love watching a beautiful Florida sunset over the water or over a lake. I love sticking my feet in the sand. I love to see the ocean.

I could look at that every day. I don't want to take that for granted. I love hot weather, so I'd be just as fine. I always say as long as it's above 80 degrees. I'm always happy if it's above 80 degrees.

I love that. And so people from Florida take that for granted. But you know what? It's easy for us to look at all those things. Oh, by the way, I love crocodiles, or I'm sorry, alligators.

Here we are on see, I'm not from Florida. I love alligators, and we have a little pond near our house, like, as we turn into our neighborhood, and we still drive by slow. Every time we look to see if we see the alligator over on the bank, the Floridians look at us like, what are they doing? You know? So anyway, how many blessings do we miss out on just because they become normal?

The famous writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, once commented that if the stars only came out once per year, everyone would stay up all night to see them. When's the last time you walked outside and just stared up at the stars? We start to take them for granted, and and and we we just said they're there every night. The nation of Israel miraculously was given manna. They were given food out in the middle of the wilderness.

It was provided for them exactly what they needed, nothing too extra, nothing short. They had manna every night, but what happened? They started to take it for granted, and they started to complain about it, and they wanted something else, and they missed out on the blessing. How many blessings of the Lord do we take for granted? How many times do things happen in our life that we just let fly by, we don't thank God for them, and we miss out on that?

We're gonna see today the importance of that. I want us to look at a very, very powerful story that you've heard before. You probably remembered as a child in Sunday school in Luke chapter 17. It's the story of 10 men that had a life changing healing. Something happened to them, but we're gonna see that out of the 10, only one of them actually came back to show gratitude, to return to give thanks to God, to Jesus.

And that's that one man's gratitude led to something special for him that the others missed out on. So look at verse 11 with me. Luke chapter 17 and verse 11. It says, and it came to pass as he went to Jerusalem that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him 10 men that were lepers, which stood afar off.

So who is this it's talking about? Who was who was passing through? It was Jesus. Okay? Verse 13.

And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, go show yourselves unto the priest. And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back and with a loud voice glorified God. And he fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks.

And he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answered saying, were there not 10 cleansed? But where are the nine? They are not found there are not found that return to give glory to God, save this stranger. Verse 19.

And he has said unto him, arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. Now let me set the scene for you here for just a minute. You already read what's going on there, but Jesus is traveling to Jerusalem. We realize that he's been teaching his disciples along the way, and he's been preparing his disciples for what's getting ready to happen, and we know that eventually Jesus is gonna be crucified. His death is is impending.

They're gonna face things that they can't imagine, And along the way, Jesus passes through a village or probably on the outskirts of the village, there are these 10 lepers that are there. Now remember, lepers were outcasts. They would have been the very lowest of society on the social rung. They would have been people that were totally isolated. They were considered unclean.

They were contagious. Nobody wanted to get leprosy. They stayed away from them. And their lives were marked by pain. They had suffering.

They had this rejection. They were isolated. But on this day, they had this encounter with Jesus, and everything changes. Now let's think about leprosy for just a second. We are blessed that leprosy is not really the same kind of problem anymore that it used to be.

There is still leprosy in parts of the world, but for the most part it can be treated now. But they only congregated together. They couldn't be with other people. They were totally outcast. We wouldn't even want to think about how terrible it was to be a leper.

They would have been left out. They would have been secluded. They would have had to live in isolated places. Nobody wanted to come near them because they would be fearful. They would catch the dreaded disease.

They would have had constant pain. A lot of them would have had deformities on their body. Not to be over gross, but they would have had leaking or oozing sores with pus coming out of it their whole life. And even worse, they would have had an unpleasant odor. I mean, literally, some of their skin is practically rotting on their body.

And so here is this terrible disease. These people are feared. They're sick. They're in pain. They're miserable.

And even worse, they're left alone. They feel like outcasts. They feel shame. So the life of a leper was just terrible, and that makes the story even more powerful of an example for us to consider. The story teaches us some truths, and I want us to just think about a few of those truths today.

The first thing I want us to see is that they recognize the need for Jesus. That's what we need to do. We need to recognize our need for Jesus. Look at verse 12, it says, And as he entered into a certain village, there met him 10 men that were lepers, which stood afar off. I like what it does, what happens here in verse 13.

And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. What a prayer. What a prayer. They recognized that they had a need and they recognized that there was something special about Jesus. This man that's walking, they saw him from a distance.

They knew who he was. I suppose they had heard about him. They had heard about his miracles. They had heard about his teachings and so forth. And so it wasn't a long prayer.

It wasn't some eloquently written request letter or petition that went to them. It wasn't polished. It wasn't special. But it was powerful because it came from this very, very awful place of desperation. You see, folks, what does this teach us?

Gratitude begins with recognizing our need. Gratitude, when we recognize our need for Jesus. These men, these 10 lepers, they couldn't heal themselves. They could not go to the temple and be healed by the priest. They could not find any kind of medication.

There was no kind of ointment. There was nothing that would bring them significant or permanent help. They realized their need. They could not fix their situation. They could not improve their situation, not even one bit.

They needed Jesus. Think about this for a second. You cannot have gratitude if you think you have got everything under control. You cannot have gratitude if you think that you can fix all your own problems. You cannot have gratitude if you do not realize the wonderful blessing of salvation that Jesus is offering.

Gratitude starts when we humble ourselves, when we are willing to say, Lord, I need you. Now I want you to think about this for a second, but in the world that we live in today, one of the big obstacles is people do not think they are sinners. And so if people do not realize they are sinners, if they do not realize they are lost, they do not know that they need to be found and they are just wandering around aimlessly lost. And so when we realize our need for a savior, because of the wonderful gospel message, we do not have to live in isolation. We do not have to live in desperation.

We do not have to live miserable without hope. We should be filled with gratitude because we realize we need Jesus and he has offered to bring us help. When we are willing to acknowledge, Lord, I need you. Don't turn here, have just saved the time. But in Psalms 34 verse 17, it says, the righteous cry and the Lord heareth and delivereth them out of all their troubles.

The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and save as such to be of a contrite spirit. And that sounds like what we see here. These people were desperate. The lepers cried out. They knew their need and Jesus heard them.

What a joy to see. And do you recognize, what did they call him? Not just Jesus, they said Jesus, Master. So what's interesting about that, they recognized his authority. They recognized that there was something special about him.

It was a term of respect or showing that he had this place of authority. Now let just pause for a second and give us a way to think of that. Alright, so how many of you, you're not going to want to admit it, how many of you have watched the People's Court? Alright, we have got one, we have got two honest people, three. Alright, we have watched the People's Court or maybe you watch, what is it, Judge Judy or one of these judges, I don't even know how many they are now, or maybe you have watched Law and Order or something like that.

Or maybe you watch Court TV. What happens when the judge comes into the courtroom? The bailiff says, All rise, and everybody stands up. Then when people come in and they approach the bench to talk or they are answering the judge, what do they say? Your Honor.

Yes, Your Honor. Yes, Your Honor. It's a term of respect. I've even watched some of these videos where some of these dumb criminals, they'll go and they're trying to talk their way out of conviction. I saw this one guy and he said, your majesty and everybody in the courtroom started laughing.

But the idea is that when they called Jesus master, it was because they recognized his authority. They recognized that he they recognized who he was. They recognized there was something special about him. My question for us is, do we recognize Jesus as the master of our life? You see, are going to go through challenges, are going to go through difficulties, and we are going to come to terms with our mortality and someday we are going have to look and say, you know what?

I am a sinner and the only way, the only hope I have is through the person and work of Jesus. Gratitude grows when we understand who he is and who we are. And it kind of seems counterproductive. It almost seems backward to our American way of thinking. So in other words, when I find out that I am lost and I am doomed to an eternity separated from God, I have no hope, why should that lead me to gratitude?

It should lead me to gratitude because the story doesn't end with that desperation. The story ends with the finished work of Jesus. Too often, we're too independent. We're too self centered. We're too comfortable.

We don't think we need anybody's help. And so when we develop a true gratitude in our heart, we recognize how much we need Jesus. So how do we apply this to our own lives? Are we really thankful for Jesus and what he did for us? Do we recognize our need for him?

You know, sometimes we literally need physical provision from God. We get to the point where we cannot pay our bills or we have a need, a physical need, and we can go to God for that. Sometimes we need emotional healing. We have gone through trauma or we have gone through a crisis or we have gone through a mental health issue, and we need emotional healing. We can get that from God.

But most importantly, God offers us spiritual, lasting salvation that we can have through Jesus. And I love how these lepers recognize their need for Jesus. If you're here today and you feel in desperation, you are at the end of your rope, you say, Man, this guy, he is a visitor, he has come over here to preach and he is telling us all these things to be thankful for. I do not have anything to be faithful for. Everything in my life is falling apart.

I I don't even know what's gonna happen to me when I die. Look at it with gratitude because it's not the end of the story. Jesus is here to offer salvation. And so when we recognize our dependence on him, it should lead us to gratitude. The second thing I see is they obeyed God in faith.

And that's what we need to do, obey God in faith. Look at verse 14. And when he saw them, so he's talking about the 10 lepers, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed. Now I want you to just kind of read this exactly as it is written.

I believe in the literal interpretation of Scripture. I believe what we see here is a true story. And what happened here? Jesus told them, they said, Master, I am going put it in John Poe's version of the Bible, Hey, we are sick. Heal us, save us and have mercy on us.

What happened? He says, Go to the priest. That was it. Do you think the minute that Jesus said, Go to the priest, were they already healed? Do you think those scabs were gone?

Do you think that foul odor was gone? Do you think the pain and deformities that they had was gone? Do you think the virus or bacteria or whatever it is running through their body was gone? You know what? I think for a split second it was not gone.

It was still there. When they took that step of faith, they were healed. You see, they had to obey in faith because it says, He said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests and it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed. See, is what else I read into it. If they had been instantly like, Oh, this light shines down and all of a sudden the scabs fall away and a spectacular event happened, they would have run to Jesus right then.

But I think they started walking. They said, okay, we are going do what he said, and as they walked, they began to realize that they were being changed, and that is what led the one to come back. He told them to go to the priest. Now why would he do that? Well, it was common practice in those days.

If someone had, they started to have, let's say a scar, they started to have some kind of rash break out and to make sure it wasn't contagious, they would go to the priest who would examine it to see if they were clean. So the fact that Jesus said, Go to the priest, Jesus already knew that when they got to the priest, they were going to be healed. The priest was going to recognize that they were clean. They could go back into society. They were healed.

So that's why he sent them there. Was just common practice for the priest to check on their skin to see if they needed to be isolated. And at that moment, when Jesus told them to go to the priest, they were still lepers, but when they stepped out on faith and obeyed, they were healed. The physical chains started to take place. They obeyed.

And it says, as they went, they were cleansed. So here's the second truth I see from this. Not only should our need for Jesus lead us to gratitude, but after recognizing our need for Jesus, we must obey him in faith. These men acted on Jesus' word before they saw the results, and that's faith. You know, sometimes we do things you remember as a kid, they do these, group activities and, you know, they'd have somebody stand on a picnic table and cross their arms, and you'd fall backwards into the arms of the people behind you, and you and the worst part was you had to just trust that you were there.

You know, some of them people would cheat, they'd look over their shoulder and make sure. That is not really faith. You are making sure they are there. You know, every one of you is demonstrating faith this morning because you are sitting in the pews of Missouri Avenue Baptist Church. I did not see anybody come in and push the pew, check to see if it was sturdy, make sure it was bolted in.

I noticed the hem rack up here says it is broken on this one. It has got a note on it, so maybe your pew is broken. Did you check it? No, because we had faith that the pew was going to hold us up. Well, in the same way, I think they had faith that Jesus was going to heal them because they stepped out.

They started to walk. God calls us to obey before we see the blessing. You know, when God led Debbie and I and our family to go to Peru as missionaries, we weren't promised that everything would be wonderful. We weren't promised that we would see countless people saved. We weren't promised that a big, vibrant, thriving church would be left when we left Peru.

We weren't promised any of that, but you still have to step out on faith. And so many times in our lives we see that. It seems to me as if Jesus was saying to the lepers, trust me, take that step of faith, walk out in obedience, and you will see my power at work. I tell this example all the time, so excuse me if I have said it here at the church before. But it reminds me of the story of the carnival performer that went to Niagara Falls.

He goes to Niagara Falls, if you've ever been there, it is spectacular and it is a long way across. Somehow they strung a cable across Niagara Falls, and he goes out and these crowds gather and there's like thousands of people to see this performer, cross over Niagara Falls. So he goes and he gets the little balancing rod and he goes out and the crowd gets quiet. There's a guy over there doing a drum roll and he gets all the way across Niagara Falls right when he gets to the Canadian side. The crowd goes wild, everybody cheers.

And then they come over and make this announcement. Who thinks he can do it with a wheelbarrow? And the crowd just trares and there is a band playing. Everybody is all excited and they are getting all hyped up. So he gets the wheelbarrow and he walks across Niagara Falls with the wheelbarrow.

And everybody cheers. They are all excited. Then they say, he gets to the other side, says, How many thinks he can do it with a person in the wheelbarrow? Everybody cheers. It is wonderful.

And he is like, Okay, he will do it as soon as we have a volunteer step forward. And nobody stepped forward. And the crowd got really, really quiet. You see, that's the idea. If we say, yes, I believe that Jesus will bless me.

I believe that Jesus can heal me. I believe that God can do all these things, but we're not willing to take that first step. We say, Oh, I know God can get me across in the wheelbarrow, which by the way, I'm scared of heights. God says, Lo, I am with you always, so I'm not getting in the wheelbarrow. But anyway, the thing is sometimes we have to step out in faith even when it's scary, even when we don't know the outcome, and that's what makes it faith.

Proverbs three, five, and six says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not in understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. Or some versions say, he will make your paths straight. So what step of step of faith is God asking you to take? Is it forgiving somebody that offended you or hurt you?

Is it giving a little more generously to the church sacrificially you think that you can't? Is it surrendering control of the situation that you're in? Gratitude shows us we trust God's word and we obey his leading. The third thing I see is that one return to give God the glory, and we need to return to give the glory to God. Now here is the turning point in the story.

How many lepers were healed? 10. How many came back? One. And so only one.

He turned back praising God with a loud voice and he fell at Jesus' feet. Look at verse fifteen, and one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back and with a loud voice glorified God and fell down on his face at his feet giving him thanks, and he was a Samaritan. So here is the third truth: Gratitude seeks the giver, not just the gift. Think about that for a second. Gratitude seeks the giver, not just the gift.

It is not that we just want the blessings, it is not that we want a fire escape from hell, we want a relationship with God Almighty. So that is what we see in this one that came back. The other nine, they were happy to be healed. They were happy that this terrible disease was gone. They were happy they could be integrated back into society.

They missed the opportunity to glorify God. They missed the opportunity to have an experience with God. Only the one returned, and Jesus took notice. And my question for us is, church, are we like the nine or are we like the one? Do we recognize our need for Jesus?

If we do, do we are we willing to step out in obedience? And when God does bless us, do we come back to give glory to him? Sadly, many times we miss this opportunity. We miss the opportunities in our life to give God thanks. We don't even recognize the blessings we have.

You know, it would be amazing if we knew how many times God in his sovereignty kept us from an accident, How many times God in his sovereignty allowed us to cross paths with just the right person that we needed to see or we needed to talk to or we needed to help solve a problem. And we don't even recognize those things as being blessings from God. We don't come back to give him thanks. Psalms one zero three says, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Verse two, one zero three two says, bless the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

You realize we have all kinds of benefits that we receive as Christians, and if we're not careful, we will just begin to take them for granted, and we'll miss out like the other nine did. So how can you return to God this week and glorify him? Maybe it's through prayer. We go to God. We acknowledge how we think he worked in our lives this week.

We share our testimony with someone. This week, you're going to have visitors in your house perhaps or you're going to be a visitor in somebody's house. Maybe share a word, a testimony of how you've been blessed by God and that might have an influence in their life that you can't imagine but don't let Thanksgiving stop at the gift. Let's make sure it leads us back to the giver. There's one quick final thing I want us to see, and that's number four, that gratitude leads to wholeness.

Gratitude leads to wholeness. Look at verse 19. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way thy faith hath made thee whole. Apparently, all 10 of the lepers were healed physically. I have no doubt based on what I am reading here that because of Jesus, the 10 were healed of leprosy.

They were able to go back into society. But only this one man that came back experienced something deeper, that spiritual wholeness. Now, I am reading between the lines. This is just a possibility, but when I read this, it makes me wonder if the other nine, they were healed physically, but spiritually they were still lost. They missed out on a salvation experience, eternal life with Jesus.

But this one that came back by demonstrating his faith, demonstrating that he recognized the person of Jesus Christ and what he had done for him, that he was made spiritually whole. Do you know what? There are probably people, we pray for somebody and say, Lord, this person is sick. I know you have prayed these prayers. Somebody is sick and somebody needs to be saved, and what do we do?

A lot of times we really want them to be healed, but why? We want them to be healed so that they have the opportunity to get saved, so that we want to know that they have the chance to hear the gospel and to understand it and make Jesus the Lord of their life. And sometimes people will be healed. God uses modern medicine. They get treatments, they are healed and they survive cancer, but they do not come to know the Lord.

They still, at the end of their life, die and they are separated from God forever. So God may have used the prayers of somebody and used modern medicine to heal them and wow, they were blessed to be healed, but like those other nine, it's possible. That's what I see in here that they never really understood salvation. They never really had that wholeness. So here's the fourth truth.

Gratitude leads to wholeness. When we practice thanksgiving, it transforms us. It gives us peace. It gives us joy. It gives us a closer relationship with God.

Hold your place here and flip over to Philippians chapter four. Philippians chapter four and verse six. This is a verse many of you may have memorized. You're gonna you're gonna recognize it when you get there. Philippians chapter four and verse six.

It says, be careful for nothing. Some verses, some versions say, be anxious for nothing. That idea being there to don't worry about anything. But in everything by prayer and supplication, asking for others, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

I could ask all of us to consider, is your gratitude transforming you? Is our attitude of gratitude causing us to be different in our relationship with God? Thanksgiving is so much more than just going to somebody and saying, thank you. Thank you, Lord, for what you've done, but it's actually falling at his feet in gratitude in worship when we recognize who he is. It's about recognizing God.

It's about letting that truth change our lives, our perspective, our worldview for the glory of the Lord. So what about us as we finish up today? Are we like the nine who enjoy the blessings of God but we forget to go back and give thanks? Or are we like the one who returned to Jesus and was made whole? This thanksgiving, let's move beyond just eating turkey.

Let's move beyond just giving a quick thanksgiving report, more than just a casual thank you, but let's recognize our need for Jesus. Let's step out and obey him in faith. Let's return to give him glory. And when we do, let's experience the wholeness that that gratitude brings. Father, we thank you for this wonderful, simple story of the 10 lepers.

Father, we probably heard this our whole life and, Lord, help us now as we go into thanksgiving. Not to just to be thankful that we are blessed as Americans, not just to be thankful that we have a big turkey to eat, not just to be thankful that we have a job or a house or a car, whatever these material blessings are, but thankful that we need Jesus. Thankful that he died on a cross for us, that he lived a sinless life, died for us, and was resurrected, overcoming sin so that we could have life. Father, help us to look to him, to step out in faith, to obediently serve so that others can see, And help us to be careful to come back to give you thanks, Lord. Father, we thank you that we could be here this morning.

We have so many blessings, but we we just wanna celebrate our need for Jesus and that that price was paid for us. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Thank you for that. Have a resounding message for us as he did in Sunday school.

And in sun